Ireland risks seeming antisemitic - Occupied Territories Bill

THE best that can be said about the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 is that it is a well meaning show of solidarity with the Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank area.

The worst that can be said about it is that, by targeting the actions of Israel alone, the Bill risks the accusation that Ireland is anti-semitic. It is already being seen as such in the United States, particularly in Boston where politicians, business people and other power brokers have spoken against it, among them Mayor Martin J Walsh. The most trenchant criticism has come from prominent Boston lawyer Robert Popeo who describes the Bill as “the most outrageous blatant piece of anti-Semitism that I’ve seen in the past few years.”

The Bill was tabled by Independent Senator Frances Black and seeks to prohibit trade with Israeli settlements illegally established on territories considered occupied under international law. It appears to reflect UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016 which calls for the international community to differentiate between its relations with Israel within the 1967 borders and its dealings with Israeli settlements in the occupied territories.

If passed it will mean that Ireland will boycott goods produced in those settlements in the West Bank area of Palestine, which has been under occupation since 1967.

The Bill has moral force as the Israeli occupation of the territories stands in violation of numerous UN resolutions and is generally regarded by international observers as a major obstacle to peace in the region. The recent announcement by the Israeli government of plans to build thousands of new homes in those territories has galvanised opponents of the occupation, which is now in its 51st year.

The stated purpose of the Bill, currently being debated in the Dáil, is “to give effect to the State’s obligations arising under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and under customary international humanitarian law.”

If that is its purpose, then the reach of any law that criminalises certain trade should seek to include other major violators of international law.

The state of Israel is not the only occupying force. What about the occupied territories of Russia (Ukraine, including Crimea, from 2014, also parts of Moldova – 1992 - and Georgia - 2008), Turkey (northern Cyprus from 1974 and parts of Aleppo in Syria since 2016), Morocco (most of the Western Sahara since 1975)?

All of these territories are either under direct occupation of a foreign power or have been occupied by an armed group with the support of a foreign power.

If our legislators are serious about using economic boycott to make a political point, they should broaden the debate to include all of those occupied territories.

There is also an inherent contradiction in continuing to trade with a nation whose government continues to breach international law while, at the same time, banning trade that is likely to hurt Palestinians as much as Israelis.